September 17, 2014 [The Times of India] - East India Petroleum Private Limited (EIPL) is planning to undertake an expansion project with investments of around Rs 408 crore that involves construction of additional storage tanks and related facilities for petroleum products in the city.
As per the proposal submitted to the Union ministry of environment and forests, EIPL is expanding its storage facilities for petroleum products, liquid chemicals in addition to setting up a bottling plant with additional storage of LPG in mounded bullets, including associated facilities.
EIPL’s operations include receiving POL (petroleum, oil, lubricant) products/ chemicals and LPG through respective pipelines from vessels berthed at the Visakhapatnam Port into the tanks for storage and later transported to different locations for the use of various consumers and industries in the region.
According to EIPL, “The proposed project is an expansion of the existing terminal. The existing storage capacity is 70,000KL of petroleum products, 39,274KL of crude palm oil and bio-diesel products and 9,000MT of LPG. After expansion, the combined storage capacity of different petroleum products will be 1.66 lakh KL of POL, including proposed expansion of 57,327KL of petroleum products and 28,773MT of LPG, including proposed expansion of 19,773MT.
The depot has facilities for storage, handling and dispatch of different petroleum products, bio-fuels and LPG. No chemical process is involved in the operations of the terminal.”
EIPL is now planning to expand its storage capacity in order to meet future business requirements as the company expects huge demand of storage space for petroleum products and liquid chemicals as pharma-based industry is likely to witness rapid growth in and around the city.
As part of its expansion plans, EIPL wants to initially construct two MS (mild steel) storage tanks for replacing an existing earthen reservoir. EIPL has said that the new MS storage tanks with a total capacity of 16,626 KL would be of 63% excess capacity as compared to the capacity of the existing reservoirs. EPIL plans to build additional storage tanks in that area of the existing reservoir.
Furthermore, EIPL will construct around 15 MS storage tanks of different sizes for petroleum products and petrochemicals in addition to the LPG bottling plant with a capacity of 100 tonnes per day.
According to EIPL’s website, the company’s clients include Indian Oil Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, LG Polymers, Aurobindo group, Overseas Polymers among others. Attempts to elicit a response from EIPL officials at Vizag failed as they refused to comment on the planned expansion proposal.
